ONE OF the last of the old school where your word was your bond and you shook hands after you bought or sold stock, and that was it.
So summarised the late Angus William McDonald, labelled an iconic career stock and station agent of western NSW in a candid tribute from good friend and pastoralist, George Mack, who did all his stock and property business with the Trangie agent for 51 years.
Angus McDonald died on January 11, aged 82.
Described by peers as a person of inordinate integrity, phenomenal knowledge of livestock and a terrific person to boot, George Mack remembers the retiring Trangie manager of Pitt Son and Badgery Mick Leahy, recognising McDonald's ability and picked him out to as the replacement in 1965 when McDonald was just a "stock boy".
By the early 1980s he was promoted to manage the newly merged Elders, AML&F and Pitt Sons Trangie branch.
Born in Melbourne in 1937 he was virtually a career agent having moved to Goulburn at a young age and working on the family's grazing property following school.
An accomplished sportsman, he completed his early school years at Goulburn High School then moved to Canberra Grammar School where he played in the First XV rugby union and First X1 cricket teams.
In his early wool classing days he showed his skill as a proficient debater when he joined another long term agent and friend, Bob Andrews, to win debating competitions in the southern tablelands representing the Goulburn Junior Farmers team.
In 1961 he took up a supposedly short term relief position at the Trangie Elders Smith Goldsbrough Mort branch to assist them with their annual Bundemar Merino ewe sale. He never left the district.
By 1965 he was manager of Pitt Son and Badgery Trangie branch.
Long-time associate, Scott MacDougall, joined McDonald as accountant in 1979 just before the mergers and they worked together on-and-off for many decades.
After a short stint with PT Lord and Associates Mr McDonald formed his own business of Angus McDonald Trangie Pty Ltd, and worked through Elders, but later formed Trangie Livestock and Property.
Scott MacDougall described Mr McDonald as an extremely generous person who worked hard for clients including the Brown family of Wanaaring, George Mack and Moombidary Station, Hungerford, the Kater family, Warren, and Ron Perich of Leppington Pastoral Company.
Mr Mack said he was living in a tent on his Western Lands lease, Charlton Station on the Bogan River, Brewarrina, at the time of McDonald's Pitt Son appointment, and it was a year or two later that they began business together.
"I had it for 47 years and Angus did all my business until he handed over the stock to Scott MacDougall about three years ago," Mr Mack said.
"Angus was a man of great integrity and you could trust anything he said, He was totally reliable."
Mr Mack jokingly suggested McDonald worried more about his business than Mack did.
"We went up some dry gullies and at the end of the day we always picked ourselves up and off we went again," he said.
Mr McDonald is survived by wife Lyn, son Andrew and daughter-in-law Yvette, Jo and David, Melissa and Emma and three grandchildren.
Funeral service will be held at St Carthage's Catholic Church, Trangie at 10.30am Monday, January 20.